McGinnis Nine-Nine: “Gentian Hill”

Part of a celebration of Robert McGinnis’ XCIXth birthday.



Gentian Hill, by Elizabeth Goudge (Popular Library, circa 1970).*

Beyond the multitude of modern novels for which Robert McGinnis has created cover illustrations, he’s also painted first-class images for myriad works of historical fiction. Included among those was this front for Gentian Hill, a standalone novel initially released by Coward-McCann (an imprint of G.P. Putnam’s Sons) in 1949.

Its author was Elizabeth Goudge (1900-1984), an Englishwoman who, immediately after World War I, began penning fiction for adults as well as children. She published her first novel, Island Magic, in 1934. Wikipedia says that the prolific Goudge only really loved three of her own books: The Valley of Song (1951), The Dean’s Watch (1960), and The Child from the Sea (1970). Yet she may be best-remembered today for a 1946 children’s fantasy, The Little White Horse, which J.K Rowling has said influenced her work on the best-selling Harry Potter series. Her 1944 historical yarn, Green Dolphin Country (retitled Green Dolphin Street in the States), was adapted for the big screen in 1947, with Lana Turner, Van Heflin, and Donna Reed starring.

Goudge’s novels are described as being patiently plotted, though predictable at times, with significant attention given to their settings. They are known, too, to bear “strong Christian theme[s],” as one reviewer put it a few years back, “yet without any preaching. Faith is taken for granted, not just in God but in dreams, and superstitions, and also the ability to recognise kindred spirits.”

Robert McGinnis’ illustration for Gentian Hill, shown above, well reflects that novel’s amorous and prominent seafaring elements. Its action takes place in Devon, England, during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. A frigate has anchored in a Devonshire bay, carrying a 15-year-old midshipman who determines to desert his post and free himself from the ship’s abusive captain. He swims to shore, and thereafter disappears into the surrounding countryside. His wandering eventually takes him to Weekaborough Farm near Gentian Hill, where he meets a notably sensitive 10-year-old girl, Stella. A romance soon blossoms between the pair, but it’s tragically interrupted by the boy having to return to the sea, this time under an alias.

“There is no guarantee that they will be reunited,” warned another blogger. Yet this wouldn’t be a true love story if they were not.

* Nailing down a firm publication date for this paperback has been difficult. Online sources were unhelpful, so I finally sent a note to collector Tim Hewitt, who said he owns a copy of the book. “But unfortunately,” he replied, “Popular Library was notorious (as far as I’m concerned, anyway) for not including any publication data on the copyright page other than the original copyright date. That’s the case with this one. Nothing there but the original 1949 copyright date.

“Popular reprinted a ton of older literary and former bestseller titles from decades earlier, so a lot of their books from the 1960s and ’70s have no print date for their edition. And you’re right; [1949 is] too early for McGinnis. He didn’t paint his first paperback cover until 1958! (Also, Popular Library paperbacks didn’t look like this in 1949. They were stubby and had a yellow rectangle with the words ‘Popular Library’ in the upper left corner of the cover.)

“I wish I could nail down a date, but the best I can do is say is that based on the cover price it's from sometime between 1970 and '75, probably on the lower end. (Lately I’ve just been labeling these Popular Library titles with ‘circa [pick a date].’ I had a history professor tell me once that as long as you said something happened ‘circa 1880’ you were right, even if the event happened in 1885!)”